Dragon Wings
by Laziness Incarnate
Summary: [FFVI] AU. What if Celes were a dragoon?


**Dragon Wings**

Head tilted back, she measures with her eyes the height of the treeline.

She can leap it.

Behind her, soldiers murmur in disbelief, while her senior lieutenant smiles knowingly. He knows her worth. She need not turn to imagine the condescension he wears on his face.

She lands on the other side of the grove, wind still gusting shrilly in her ears. She hears, after the fact, the din of her arrival: the reverberations in the earth, the clank of her armour, the whistle of her spear as it cuts the air. Standing, she surveys the trees again. The spruces grow straight and tall here; the greatest among them, she judges, could reach even to the ramparts of Doma castle.

Satisfied, she returns to the other side of the grove. The men applaud, and her senior lieutenant salutes with mock gravity. _A good demonstration of your prowess_, he seems to say. _Very good._

He lingers even after she orders her soldiers back to the encampment. He is wearing Kefka's smile.

"Under that helm you are fearsome, my lady. How I wonder at your face without it."

Celes does not return his smile. "You have seen my face before, Lieutenant."

"And a most lovely one it is. But it is that of a mere maiden, not a dragon knight. The enemy fears the helm, not the visage beneath it."

_And who is my enemy, lieutenant?_

"How I envy you the skies," he continues when she does not answer. "Could I leap as you do, my feet would scarce touch ground before I gave myself to the wind once more."

"Envy me not. My abilities are less a boon than you think."

"But you are unique even among the Magitek elite! My conjurations of ice and snow seem mere parlour tricks compared to your flight. I wonder what Esper it was that gave you such powers? A dragon, perhaps, to birth a dragoon? Has Cid told you?"

She regards him steadily. "You know it is forbidden to speak aught of this."

"Of Espers? But they are such lovely morsels. Surely we who have partaken of the feast may speak freely of them."

It is Kefka's avarice she hears in his voice now. She recoils from it, for once her soul was filled with the same. "I refuse to speak on this subject. It is forbidden."

"I am chastised by your purity," he simpers. "Truly, you are a warrior of old reborn among us, General. They say the dragoons were almost a race apart from us poor mortals bound to the earth."

"Surely not."

"Come, you must tell me why you think so low of one so high as yourself."

She answers, curbing her distaste, "You misunderstand me. I merely wish to be of more use to our cause. I am the sole dragoon in His Majesty's army; far better had there been others like me so we might form a company."

"Loneliness, my lady?" he teases. "I did not think you cared for the company of a company."

"If there were others like me, my mission tonight would be assured. Make no mistake, I shall succeed. But I mislike our...dependence on my abilities."

"It troubles me not to trust in my dragoon General," he says with too much sincerity. "I do not doubt that when our army marches on Doma this eve, we shall find the doors open wide, by your hand."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Truly, she thanks him in her heart for revealing his perfidiousness. "I am glad of your confidence. I will carry it with me tonight. Now I must return to my duties."

"Of course. Let me escort you back to the barracks."

"That will not be necessary."

"But I go the same way."

"Very well."

He continues to converse with her as they walk, questioning her on seemingly small matters. In due time Kefka will hear report of her words, she knows. But he will hear too late.

_I shall be gone ere your hand can reach me, Kefka. I am gone ere the sun rises._

Her lieutenant is still smiling coyly. "Are you sure you will not tell me your Esper?"

"Lieutenant." She stops walking abruptly. "If you ask again, I will not hesitate to report you. Do not believe too well in the flattery you heap upon my character; I am not one to be cajoled into softness." She begins walking again.

"Surely a dragon," he muses behind her.

\- 0 - 0 -

Upon returning to her tent, she begins the irksome task of combing her hair.

_The men take heart when they see it stream behind your dragon helm_, the emperor told her once. _There is nothing quite so lovely, nor so deadly, as the sight of your golden hair._

She would have cut it long ago had he not commanded her leave it long.

_Deadly is my spear_, she thinks as she unravels the mess, _but never will I call this hair of mine fearsome, save to me._

She imagines her emperor's reply.

_Your humility does you credit, my dear, but forget not the pride of your ancient order! The greatest of dragoons wore his hair long, they say. When he leapt the wind itself shewed him honour. He lived in an age where magic flowed freely as blood, where the four elements of nature themselves housed some strange power. We must recapture that magic, Celes._

She dares think how she might answer.

_You are mad, Your Majesty. Magic is governed by science and fueled by Magitek energy, not by your fanciful tales. Cid has told me-_

And here her imaginings end with the fall of the executioner's axe. To even dream such utterances - madness indeed. Should anyone be called guilty of overindulgence, it is Celes.

_Long hair will not save my head from aught, _she muses, _but 'twould be folly to cut it now, with Kefka's man watching so close. I shall not be reckoned a traitor over something so trifling as hair. But after tonight, should I somehow live, I shall cut it forthwith._

Yes, shears for her hair rather than an axe for her neck; it is all a traitor might wish for.

_Do you know, Gestahl, that my Esper is not a dragon, but a bird?_

\- 0 - 0 -

"A strange beast, your Esper," Cid told her once, in whispers. "A bird, but not a graceful thing. A long beak and cruel talons. Pinions sharp as swords. Its wings unfurled might span the length of this room. 'Twould be a fearsome sight indeed, did it fly."

"May I see it?" Celes asked in her childish way.

He shook his head. "No one may see. Not even you, child. I would not even tell you the shape of it but that you asked."

"Forgive me," she answered, seeing the fear in him. "I only wanted to know how I came to be this way. My magic is strange, they say."

"Perhaps. But perhaps you are not strange so much as blessed. They envy you, Celes. They wish to fly as you do."

"But I do not fly," she insisted. "A dragon without wings, they call me."

"Yet dragons have long disappeared from this world." Here his voice was almost regretful. "If they speak of dragons, they speak stories learned at a grandmother's knee. There is no true learning on this subject. But who are 'they,' child?"

She glanced about, almost fearfully, and leaned in close to whisper, "Kefka."

His eyes flickered with some strange emotion. "Ah. Yes, that is one who knows envy."

"But why would he envy me? He has magic of his own." She felt her own covetousness rising within her breast. "I would have fire such as he commands, or thunder or ice."

"Wonderful powers those are," he assured her, "but you command the skies. We are jealous, we who cannot fly."

"I cannot fly!"

And then he said a strange thing.

"Your magic is a bird. You cannot help but fly."

\- 0 - 0 -

_Did you know, Cid, that one day I would seek escape?_

On her desk is the map she has prepared, with painstaking care, since arriving at the siege camp. Her penmanship is neat, from long practice and study, and the words are small, out of necessity. On the map her own command tent, of course, is clearly marked, though in truth there is little of consequence stored within. More important are the Magitek armour units, their repair stations, and the pilot tents, scattered strategically around the camp. Leo is no fool; he knows to protect his weapons. She has marked them all and written details regarding their kind and number and ways to penetrate their protections.

Beside each weapons store, artillery barracks, and infantry barracks, the numbers she has written are staggering. Her advisors tell her Leo's army - her army, once Leo has departed - outnumber the Doman forces six to one. The builders have readied twelve siege towers, fifty-seven wooden ladders and eighty grapnel ropes as of noon today. The engineers have concocted explosives and designated the places where they ought best be deployed. And from the capital Leo has seen fit to bring a steel battering ram fitted with enormous rings on its sides - not for human hands to grasp, but for the metal claws of Magitek armour.

_In time Cid will find a way to strengthen the fire cannons so that Magitek armour can melt steel gates; and on that day the Domas and Figaros of the world will be opened to the emperor with neither key nor consent, nor a dragoon to leap the battlements. But until that day I am needed yet._

She writes a few more details - the places where the engineers have stored their raw chemicals, the names of her highest-ranked subordinates - when she hears the guard at her door call for her attention.

"General Leo is here," he says from outside the tent. "He bids leave to enter and speak with you."

The map must not be seen; in Doma it will be her vouchsafe, but here it is her condemnation. She shuts it away in her desk drawer and locks it with the key she wears around her neck. In its place she lays out a map of Doma castle and its purlieus.

"Let him enter," she says.

\- 0 - 0 -

"I depart within the hour," Leo speaks without preamble, "though I think it folly to leave you now."

"His Majesty awaits your return to the capital," she replies, pretending to study the map. "I came to relieve you of command; thus you must go at once. His Majesty can ill afford to keep two generals in Doma."

"Folly too is your mission," he continues, as though she has not spoken. "The Domans are honourable, but they will kill you nonetheless. Celes. The risk is too great - "

She looks up.

"I am grateful your concern, but there is no need for it. You know my skill."

"I doubt not your skill. I doubt the wisdom of casting you over our enemy's walls alone, unguarded. And I doubt this mapmaker's craft."

He lays his finger on the map, on the gate of Doma castle.

"How can we be certain the mechanism has not been changed? Can it still be raised quickly, and by one person? This map is nigh thirty years old, and much can change in such a time."

"Aye, it can," she murmurs. Thirty years ago Vector and Doma were friends, and no one would have thought it strange for ambassadors from any nation to pass Doma's gates."But the engineers assure me the map is correct. Doma has ever been fearful of machines; they did not even build their own doors. Figaro built it, and Figaro has not rebuilt it."

"But the Domans are not fools. If the gate is so easily raised, they will guard the mechanism well. Even you cannot defeat a hundred swords, nor your armour a hundred arrows. "

"You say you do not doubt my skill," she remarks, "but I think perhaps you do."

"Do not make light of your danger, Celes. They will come for you. Oft have I seen you leap and well do I know the clamour you make. Even forgetting the noise, the ramparts are not unmanned; they will _see_ you even as you fly o'er the walls - "

"I have a plan," she says without forethought. "I have a way that will succeed. I shall not die."

Leo is taken aback, and of a sudden she understands his thoughts. _He believed I had no thoughts of survival within this plan. He believed I sought death at the end of it. Perhaps I would indeed seek it, had I not chosen escape._

"What is your scheme?" he wonders. "How can you succeed and yet live?"

His eyes are dark and full of fear, so unlike the clear gray she knows so well, and they almost move her to indiscretion. The truth rises to her lips. But...

"It is better you do not know," she says finally. "It is better no one knows."

"Celes..." his voice fades, and it hurts her to hear the hurt in him. "We must do terrible things in this war, I know. But I would have you wait before you do that which has no recourse. For the many souls we face, and for our own souls as well, I beg you."

_He thinks I will use some new weapon on the Domans. He must think me despicable as Kefka_. _He has reason; scorched Maranda tells my tale. Will Doma make me a greater villain yet in his eyes? Or will he secretly think better of me for my betrayal?_

She does not for a moment think to ask him join her on the betrayer's road.

"Though I cannot tell you my plans," she says, heart heavy with regret, "I promise you I shall not shame you...nor our emperor. I came here that men's lives be not wasted unduly, both ours and theirs. I came not for base slaughter. Did you know...had I not proposed my mission, His Majesty would have sent Kefka here in my place?"

"Aye, I knew."

Lightly, she places her hand upon his vambrace and leans in close, and his eyes widen with surprise; she has never been one for tenderness. But it is discretion, not affection that compels her to whisper so close to his ear. "Kefka would have used poison, and the emperor would have allowed it, Leo. Nay, would have lauded it."

He stills at her words, hardly breathing; she knows him well enough to know his disquiet. "South Figaro is his instead," she continues, "but the emperor forbade poison; it is a city of great value, and Figaro is powerful still. But Doma, strange and backward Doma, is worthy of poison. You see how skillfully it would have done our work? What need of soldiers when the enemy falls of his own accord? It is better than magic."

Can Leo see what she sees in her dreams? The corpses drifting in the moat: the small bodies of children, the womenfolk with their skirts billowing in the current, the proud warriors fallen to the river bed still wearing their scaled armour, their gently curving swords? _I know what you see when you close your eyes, my friend. We are soldiers, but we love not the inglorious dead._

"What said you to His Majesty," Leo asks, after a time, "to persuade him send you instead?"

"The mines. The Domans will work the mines for us. They have great knowledge of metals, and Doman steel is harder than ours. Their swords are unlike those of any other nation. We must not allow their swordsmiths to die until their secrets are ours."

"Of course." Leo's voice betrays nothing of his thoughts. "His Majesty is wise."

"He has always had great love for swords, and famed swordsmans," Celes reminds him.

"And knights who ride the wind, wielding ancient spear and dead man's armour, who leap the enemy's walls in a single bound."

"It was not hard to persuade him, once I told him my part in this play."

He is aggrieved now, but she sees that she has won this battle. "I am not glad of your part, Celes. But I am glad it is you. The Domans do not deserve Kefka's barbarity."

"Then we are in agreement at last. You must return to Vector now. You must be satisfied in trusting me."

"I shall ever trust in you, General," he says gravely, echoing her lieutenant's words from this morning; but here the words are true, and the knife twists all the harder for that it is unintended. "I shall take my leave then. And I shall put my faith in you, and not ask you to reveal your plan."

She thinks of the map in her drawer, secreted away from his eyes by naught but a thin panel of wood; and she wants nothing more than to answer his trust with her trust. But it is not to be.

He reads her silence for the refusal that it is, and sighs, knowing too that this farewell might be their last. "At least remember, Celes, who will lead this army should you fall, and have a care."

"I remember," she answers. She has prepared aught for Kefka's worm. "But I shall not die, I promise you."

He nods, and does not belittle her promise, as others might. "Then farewell," he says simply.

"Farewell."

He leaves.

And she thanks him in her mind for his visit, for now she must recall why she came here. She need only close her eyes to see the bodies lying prone and bloated with poison.

The sun is still high. Soon she must meet with her war council to make plans, and she must also take her sleep before her mission tonight.

Yet there is first a more important task to complete. She unlocks her drawer, though it is not the map she needs now; her hand skims across it. Farther within, her fingers find a tiny bottle made of crystal, stolen from one of Kefka's private chambers in Vector. The liquid within is a dark purple.

Then from her cabinet she takes out a very fine Marandan wine, bottled twenty-seven years ago, twenty-six years before she burned that city. Her senior lieutenant, her successor, loves wine dearly, particularly the rarer vintages. He would sell a large part of his soul to taste this Marandan red.

She takes one last glass for herself - for this will be her last opportunity to enjoy the wine - and when that is done, unstoppers the small bottle taken from Kefka's rooms. She pours the few drops of liquid within into the remaining wine.

Whoever inherits her command will inherit the wine.

_I promised I would not shame you, Leo, but I never promised not to shame myself._

It is time for her war council.

\- 0 - 0 -

"The gates will open," she tells them, eyes hard with false conviction. "I will take the gate and hold it until my army comes to relieve me, even should I face a hundred swords and a hundred arrows."

Her senior lieutenant smiles.

Her council, believing in her, make their plans.

_You are gone to me, oh loyal emperor's men. Now I live in the company of men noble and traitorous and long-ago dead, and find their company good. I cannot fly, but I can yet fall._

There is naught left but sleep.

\- 0 - 0 -

"Your magic is a bird," a voice tells her. "Not ice, not fire, not thunder nor water. Not a dragon. Air, perhaps."

"I dream sometimes of a cliff," she says, voice thick in her throat, "surrounded by sky and sea. The water is purple, almost black. Somehow I know I am standing at the end of the world. The wind is cold. I own the skies not at all."

"No one owns the skies," says the voice.

"At the end of the world there is nothing to lose. There is only the leap. There is only faith. I step off the edge of the cliff. I fall."

"You are a dragon without wings," says the voice.

"Yet I live, after the fall. I wake on sand to the cries of seabirds. On the sand I see a crystal. Green with a red core, and warm to the touch. It is alive. I can sense its mind. It says, 'I will teach you to fly.'"

"You already know how to fly," says the voice.

"But I am a dragon, not a bird. How can I fly? I am a dragon without wings."

"Then," says the voice, "you must fly like a dragon."

\- 0 - 0 -

She wakes.

The sky is moonless dark. A perfect night for her task. She must ready herself.

First she folds the map carefully and tucks it away in the pocket of her tunic alongside a white cloth - her flag of surrender. Next she slides her torso into her breastplate, braces her arms in metal, greaves her fragile human legs in dragon bone. The dark helm she fixes upon her head. Last she takes up her spear, which belonged once, it is said, to a traitor-hero from another age.

Leaving the command tent, she calls her honour guard to her side. They escort her to the castle through the darkness. They leave her as she approaches the moat. Her army waits farther back, armoured in metal and Magitek, swords dull in the darkness.

The walls of Doma loom tall above her.

Suddenly her head feels light, full of dizzying sky and dragon dreams. She remembers a cliff not her own, a sky not her own at the end of the world. She remembers falling into dark waters below. She remembers sleep and endless cold.

The wind howls, and the moat churns with ocean waves. Her men stir restlessly behind her. Atop Doma's ramparts she sees arrows pointed at her heart, waiting for her to stray too close.

But now a seabird, straying far from its ocean, cries out above the stone castle walls. Its wings seem to stretch across the darkened sky. In her dream did a bird speak to her? Did it dream with her?

_To fly_, says the gull, _first you must leap._

_I am not a bird_, she answers, _I do not own the skies. I am but a dragon without wings._

_Then_, it says,_ you must fly as dragons do._

Her helm sits heavy on her head. She clutches her spear with hands that tremble in the cold. The seabird wheels above, waiting.

_I am not a bird_, she knows._ But I am a dragon._

Celes leaps.

\- End -

* * *

**Notes on FFVI canon:**

The bird Esper Palidor/Quezalli, when summoned, makes your whole party use the Jump attack. You can find its magicite in the World of Ruin - after getting the airship - by returning to the the beach on the Solitary Island.

You can also access the Jump attack by equipping Dragoon Boots (and then you can beef up your jump with a Dragon Horn). So the word "dragoon" does exist in this game! Or at least it did in the original translation of the game. Not sure about FF6 Advance.


End file.
